The Vampire Diaries won’t be back until October with new episodes, but that doesn’t mean fans have to wait that long for teases about what’s coming up in season 4. With Elena becoming a vampire, Klaus in Tyler’s body, and everything heading towards graduation, it’s going to be an exciting year.

Vampire DiariesSeason 4 Spoilers

TVLine has some scoop about what’s coming up in the fall. Executive producer Julie Plec is looking forward to exploring more about Elena now that she’s a vampire: “How do you go to high school as a new vampire? How do you fall in or out of love? How does it change who you are and what you feel? … We get really excited when we talk about this [arc] because it feels so deliciously Season 1 all over again. It takes us right back to Stefan arriving in Mystic Falls, trying to hold himself together and not let anybody know who he was. Now, we get to watch our heroine go through all of that.” Elena thought she had made a decision about her future, and while she may stick to that for a while, they’re obviously going to have fun exploring just what it means for Elena to be a vampire and how that changes her from the Elena fans have gotten to know over the past three seasons.

Just last season, they showed how Caroline dealt with a birthday after becoming a party, and she had some help from her friends with that. Now, Elena’s friends will be there for her to help her adjust to being a vampire, and with her transition, the number of mortals in the group is dwindling. Yes, she was always the doppelgÃ¤nger, but she had pictured herself living a full, mortal life. That’s no longer going to happen.

One of the best parts of the show so far has been the Originals, and The Vampire Diaries season 4 is going to continue to show them. First of all, there’s Klaus, who almost was killed off in the third season. However, Plec pointed to Joseph Morgan’s portrayal of the character as why he’s still around, so that meant changing some things up a bit. That, along with the fact that “there’s still a lot of story to tell” with Rebekah and Kol, means that the Originals will be part of the fourth season. Having to change things is “how [they] came up with the Tyler body swap,” meaning, as Plec put it, “we got to kill Klaus, and then not!” So, in a way, they did get to do what they planned toÂ—just with a twist. It still has yet to be determined how long it will be before Joseph Morgan resumes the role of Klaus, but until he does, fans get to see more of Michael Trevino playing the Original hybrid.

Rebekah will still be around, and Plec is looking forward to exploring what life is like for her: “As we get into the second half of their senior year, here’s Rebekah, still in Mystic Falls, heading back to school, completely ostracized from the community of people that she knows because of what she did to Elena and Matt [in the finale]. She’s completely loathed by the one guy [Matt] that she had a crush on, and also by her past love [Stefan].” So how is Rebekah going to handle that? Plec calls her the “queen bee” and “mean girl” of the show, and while Rebekah has been shown to enjoy some of the high school stuff, such as the dancesÂ—if only she got to make it to one (perhaps that could happen in season 4?)Â—with her recent behavior, she’s not exactly going to have people who want to be by her side for that. Since it was her action that led to Elena’s transition, she has lost those on her side. With Klaus in Tyler’s body and Elijah likely out of Mystic Falls at least at the beginning of the season, Rebekah will likely be alone for the time being. How will she handle that if that is the case?

While it’s no surprise that Elena’s transition means she’s “front and center,” they’re also going be focusing on the other characters as well. According to Plec, “This is our friends finishing out their high school lives and their lives in Mystic Falls, and each of them is going to have a transitional journey about where they go and what they’re meant to be. It’s going to be a really exciting year because it’s one of endings as much as it’s about new beginnings.” One of those endings is high school graduation for these characters, and the season does set up “what will become of them in Season 5.” While a group of them will be graduating high school but not aging anymore, they’ll still have to figure out what to do about their futures. It’s normal for people to go in different directions after graduation, and while some of them are vampires and therefore aren’t constrained by a human lifetime, there are some who are to considerÂ—if they survive to graduation, that is. It’s going to be a season for them to make some decisions about the futureÂ—and who they want by their sides in it.

What do you think of the latest The Vampire Diaries season 4 spoilers?